


Friends are Honest With Each Other

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s02e12 The Drop-In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-02-09
Updated: 2002-02-09
Packaged: 2019-05-15 02:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14782100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Episode continuation forThe Drop-In





	1. Friends are Honest With Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me; no copyright infringement is intended.  
Spoilers: "Leadership Breakfast", "The Drop-In"   
Rating: PG-13 for language  
Summary: Episode continuation for "The Drop-In"

Friends are Honest With Each Other

It was so quiet in the small grouping in front of the fireplace that both men could hear the crackling of the fire and the hiss and pop of a knot of resin burning away.

"You ambushed me." Sam broke the long silence.

"Yes."

"I put a lot of work into this. I believe in this. And with a thirty second drop-in, you totally changed the outcome."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because the environmental lobby doesn't get us elected." Toby replied.

"Is that what's important to you?"

"In this town, that's all there is."

"Sometimes your cynicism makes me want to vomit."

"My cynicism is a large part of what got us elected in the first place."

Sam took another drink and stared into the fire for a while.

"Why is it that when one of your issues comes up, you always have to be right and when one of my issues comes up, I get fucked over?"

"I get fucked over, too, Sam, more often than you think." Toby replied. "I let Ann ambush me and I wore it."

"Ann ambushes you so you have to ambush me? Cynical and petty as well."

"What happened with Ann and me had nothing to do with this."

"Like hell it didn't. You got reamed and took it out on me."

"No, Sam, I didn't." Toby sighed. "The President should not have been there. Plain and simple. If you have talked to Leo about it he would have said the same thing. In fact, Josh did."

"The President agreed. He thought it was a good idea."

"The President has advisors like Leo for a reason. Without Leo, Josh, CJ, you and me, he wouldn't be the President."

"I believed in this. It's a good bill." Sam said fiercely. "I stood up for the environment to my bosses at Gage Whitney, to the detriment of my career. This matters to me and you screwed it up."

"We got the bill." Toby pointed out quietly. "It's a good bill and a necessary bill. The bill isn't the problem. It's the presentation."

"What was so wrong about having the President championing a bill that he believes in?"

"Several things. One, he was supposed to speak to the AFL-CIO before the South American trip came up. He had to cancel and the unions understood that. What I'm going to have to explain to them tomorrow is why the President made time for the environmental lobby when the trip was cancelled."

"They asked."

"They asked after their keynote speaker couldn't make it. Which brings me to point two. The President of the United States is nobody's stand in. To have him pinch hit for somebody else sends one of two messages. Either he is the kind of guy who will go to the opening of an envelope or he's in the pocket of whatever lobby puts him in that position." Toby explained. "The drop in was not put in specifically to piss off the environmental lobby. It was to avoid pissing off the unions more than they already were by him showing up in the first place."

"The unions are already pissed off. They always are."

"So is the environmental lobby."

"They would have been happy with us if things had gone as planned." Sam said stubbornly.

"For how long?" Toby asked. "A few days? A week? You know damned well they'll be back on our asses in less than a month."

"They should be. These are important issues, Toby. It isn't just about winning votes."

"If we don't win votes, we don't have any chance of dealing with these issues. Losing doesn't help anyone at all." Toby retorted. "We got the bill. That was what was important. So they didn't get their PR coup and you didn't get a personal victory."

"This is not about me."

"No?"

"No." Sam nailed Toby with a steely glare. "Yes, I am a little upset that the speech I worked so hard to get right was coopted by your politics. I am a little upset that a cause I believe in was compromised by your meddling. But that's not the point."

"So what is the point?"

"The point is, you didn't trust me enough to tell me. You just cut me off at the knees and expected me to take it. You didn't trust me enough to let me talk to the President."

"The President is not a camp counsellor. You do not go to the President when you're upset with me. You come to me."

"Would you have listened?"

"I'm right here. Fire away."

"I know you think you fixed something tonight, but I don't think you realize what it's cost you. You broke something tonight." Sam shook his head. "You didn't trust me. Five minutes, Toby. Five minutes for you to tell me why it had to happen. That's all it would have taken."

"Five minutes was all you needed to tell me about the speech." Toby replied. "But you didn't call. You didn't clear it with Leo. You know why you didn't? Because we both would have said no and you knew it. Who ambushed who?"

"So it is personal."

"For God's sake, Sam. If I had told you, you would have bitched and whined and argued with me. Those five minutes would have been an hour. And you would have changed the speech to give the lobby a heads up as to what was coming."

"You don't trust me to do my job, either?" Sam challenged.

"You're not supposed to go off on your own."

"You go off on your own. You did it with Ann. You did it with Josie McGarry. You do it all the time. The only difference is you can get away with it because you have the power to do it."

Toby started to reply, but Sam continued on.

"It's all a game to you, isn't it? Nothing matters to you but the game. You don't trust me to understand the ramifications of this Byzantine labyrinth of compromise you and Leo seem to thrive on. Well, I'm not sure I want to understand it. I got into this to stand for something. If compromising your principles is the way you play, I don't want to play anymore. I quit."

"Do you really mean that?"

"Yes."

"Okay." Toby said quietly, sitting back.

"Okay?"

"You have to give two weeks notice. In two weeks, tell me that you still feel the same way and I'll accept your resignation and recommend you for any position you want. You're good at what you do and shouldn't find it hard to find another position with better hours and better pay." Toby replied, carefully tracing the rim of his glass with one finger. "Nobody will be surprised that you couldn't get along with me. In fact, they will probably be surprised you hung in this long."

"That's it?"

"Yeah." Toby nodded. "For what it's worth, I do trust you. I trust you to be passionate about what you care about. I trust you to remind me that there's more to this than winning. I expect you to trust me to know how to play the game. If you don't, maybe you should leave."

"Oh." Sam didn't know what to say.

"I admit, though, I've rarely been accused of selling out." Toby said quietly. "I've usually been accused of being too damn stubborn to compromise at all. Ann got me on that one. She knew that I was too interested in winning on an issue that I care about to pay attention to how it looked."

Sam said nothing and neither did Toby. Finally, Toby finished the dregs of his beer and rose. As he passed Sam, he put a hand briefly on the younger man's shoulder.

"Let me know how you decide."

\-----------------

Sam dragged himself into work, dreading it. He was still angry at Toby and now he had to work with the son of a bitch all day.

"Hey, Sam." Josh called as he walked by.  


"Hey, Josh." Sam tried to smile at him, but the effort was obviously unsuccessful since Josh followed him into his office.

"What's going on? You've got a face longer than my last credit call bill."

"Toby cut me off at the knees last night with that drop in." Sam said bitterly.

"Oh, that." Josh looked unconcerned. "If it makes you feel any better, it didn't matter how you tried to talk him out of it. He was right and you know he won't give in when he's right."

"I didn't even get a chance to talk him out of it." Sam took off his coat and hung it up. "He didn't tell me about the drop in."

"Oh-oh."

"I need to talk to Leo." Sam said tightly.

\-----------------

"Leo, I quit." Sam said simply.

"Don't tell me, Sam. Tell Toby. He's your direct supervisor." Leo replied calmly, not looking up.

"I did."

"Did he accept your resignation?"

"He told me I had to give two weeks notice. So I'm giving notice."

"Give it to him, not to me." Leo replied.

"Toby didn't tell me about the drop in."

"I know."

"He should have."

"Yes."

"He should have told me."

"The fact that Toby is lacking in people skills is not news to me, Sam." Leo said slowly. "It shouldn't be to you, either. Hell, it's not news to anyone who's ever met Toby."

"So you think he was wrong."

"I didn't hire Toby for his people skills." Leo continued, as if Sam hadn't spoken. "He wasn't wrong, Sam. The drop in had to be there, no matter how much it puts your nose out of joint."

"What about the way he treated me?"

"Are you filing a complaint?"

"Yes."

"Get it to me by the end of the day."

"So you'll talk to him."

"I already have, Sam." Leo picked up his glasses and a folder. "Toby spoke to me last night and told me that you were unhappy with his treatment of the drop in and of you."

"He went to you?"

"He wanted to warn me that you had a problem with him."

"I hope you reprimanded him."

"No." Leo looked at Sam over his glasses. "With Toby, I don't have to. He can reprimand himself better than anyone I know."

"So he gets away with running roughshod over everyone." Sam said bitterly.

"Not entirely." Leo half smiled. "I'm quite confident that the President will chew him out sufficiently for both of us."

\-----------------

"Toby, do you know how long I was back here last night before I got the call?" Bartlet said harshly.

Toby knew enough not to say anything.

"Three minutes." Bartlet continued. "Three minutes and I was talking to a whole lot of people who are very, very unhappy about what I said last night. It wasn't Sam's speech that bugged them. Sam's speech was damn near perfect. It was the thirty second spanking you wrote."

"I have seven union leaders and twelve business representatives coming to see me today." Toby replied softly. "All of them want to know why you were there in the first place. The AFL-CIO was particularly upset that you could make time to speak to the environmental lobby when you couldn't meet with them."

"I was going to South America." Bartlet pointed out. "I wanted to speak to the lobby. They've supported me and worked hard for me. God forbid that labour and business be upset. I mean, what little support they've offered me was grudging at best and I have to keep pandering to them to get anything at all."

"Sir... Yesterday, you agreed with me about the drop in." Toby said, hesitatingly. Bartlet sighed heavily.

"Yeah. I still do. I can't single out people I don't like for scolding when they refuse to censure extremism in their ranks. It was the right thing to do." Bartlet replied. "I'm trying to hold onto that thought, but it isn't easy when you have a dozen people screaming about political opportunism."

"Political opportunities and the right thing to do aren't always at odds, Sir. I'd rather that was always the case."

"Yeah, me, too." Bartlet replied. "Sam pissed with you?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Give him time to calm down."

"How much time is he likely to need?"

"I gave him two weeks to think over the resignation he offered me last night."

"Resignation? God, Toby, can't you even get along with your friends?" Bartlet exploded.

"It would appear not."

"Fix it, Toby. I want both of you here working for me."

\-----------------

Sam kept to his office, working on position papers. His conversation with Leo hadn't gone the way he expected. Toby must have talked to Leo after that disastrous couple of drinks. And somehow got Leo on his side.

That was Toby all over. Fuck up royally and somehow make it okay by sheer force of will. And Leo thought Toby didn't have people skills. Like hell he didn't.

He finished the paper he was working on and read it over. It was terse and uncompromising, but all the points were there, neat and easy to read. There was no way in hell he was going to take it to Toby himself; that's what he had an assistant for.

Cathy looked at him as if he was completely insane when he asked her to take it to him. Cathy just glared at him and told him that he didn't have a piano tied to his ass. Really, Cathy's attitude could use improvement.

"Ginger!" Sam called. Ginger appeared at his door.

"Yes?"

"Could you take this to Toby?" He held out the paper. She looked blankly at it.

"Why?"

"Because Toby wants it."

"Okay." Ginger took the paper. "You know, Toby isn't anywhere near as mad at you as he could be."

"Toby? Mad at me?"

"Because of the speech. I thought he'd be biting nails over it, but he didn't say anything about it. He didn't even say anything to me about helping with it."

"Wait a minute. Toby would have yelled at you?"

"I expected him to. I knew he wasn't going to be happy about it." Ginger said softly. "You really should have called to get his okay on it."

"Just give him the papers, Ginger."

\-----------------

"CJ, could you explain something to me?" Sam asked CJ later.

"I doubt it, but give it a shot."

"How does Toby do it?"

"Do what?"

"Manage to convince everybody he's right."

"By being right most of the time." CJ replied immediately.

"So you think he was right about the drop-in."

"Yeah." CJ looked surprised. "I would have liked a little more of a heads up on it, but I was too busy flying to New York."

"I would have appreciated a heads up." Sam said angrily.

"What?" CJ's jaw dropped. "He didn't tell you?"

"No. So much for friends being honest with each other."

"Bastard." CJ muttered. "Honestly, I could kill Toby sometimes. What the hell is the matter with him these days?"

"So you think he should have told me?" Sam asked for a clarification.

"Yeah, I think he should have told you." CJ said emphatically. "He didn't have to punish you like that for setting up the speech. It isn't like Toby to be such a hypocrite."

"Oh, he's a hypocrite, all right." Sam corrected her. "He said he didn't want to listen to me bitch about the drop-in and that's why he didn't tell me. That's such utter bullshit. He was just looking for someone to ambush after Ann Stark ambushed him."

"Wait..." CJ held up a finger. "You talked to Toby about this?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"Last night. I went to have a beer and the son of a bitch shows up and tries to talk to me." Sam fumed. "All I wanted was some time alone and he had to invade my space. As if I didn't already have enough of him yesterday."

"Toby went to talk to you?" CJ asked carefully. "He knew you were upset and he went to find you?"

"Yeah. I don't know why he had to rub it in."

"Sam, did it occur to you that maybe, just maybe, Toby was trying to apologize to you?"

"Like hell he was. There was nothing apologetic about what he said."

"Are you sure?"

"The words 'sorry', 'apology' and 'I might possibly have been wrong' never crossed his lips." Sam said, with dignity.

"Sam, I've known Toby for nearly twenty years. In all that time, I have heard Toby say the word 'sorry' exactly twice." CJ said slowly. "Once was to Andrea on the day she left him."

"And the other?"

"Is not to be discussed." CJ said firmly. "Look, if you're waiting for an explicit apology from Toby, I'm afraid you're going to be waiting a long, long time."

To be continued in Part 2

  


	2. Friends are Honest With Each Other 2

  


See part 1 for disclaimers, etc.

Friends are Honest With Each Other - part 2

The President looked over the members of his staff, mentally shaking his head. Josh and CJ were sitting on one sofa, with Leo on the other one. Sam was on the very end of Leo's sofa, as far away from Toby as possible. Toby was standing behind the other sofa, isolated from the rest of the group.

He felt an urge to order Toby to sit with the rest of the children, but quelled it almost immediately. This was something that had to be worked out without interference.

"State of the Union." Leo said, hurling the meeting into high gear without preamble. The President caught the look exchanged between Leo and Toby. Damn. It was starting. He looked at the others, wondering if they had figured it out. The three others were looking expectantly at Leo, without the telegraphing of messages. Double damn.

"We need a kick ass speech." Josh replied. "The latest poll numbers are softer than we'd like."

"Agreed. I've got the media polls and we need to address Social Security, education and trade." CJ consulted her notes. Leo groaned.

"Leo, please do not groan in the Oval Office."

"Social Security is the bane of my existence." Leo muttered.

"If we can't address the issue during a campaign, we really should address it while in office." Josh replied.

"Yes, yes, I know." Leo nodded. "It needs to be in the first part."

Sam nodded, making notes, not checking to see if Toby was doing the same thing.

"Are we introducing any policy initiatives or are we clarifying current positions?" Sam asked.

"Both." Leo said. "CJ, get what has to be in the speech to Toby by the end of the week. Josh, set up meetings with Mahaffey and Breslin and find out what has to be there from that angle. Toby, pull together what CJ and Josh get, as well as what old business has to be there."

"And me?" Sam asked quietly, when Leo didn't continue.

"You, Sam, will be far too busy reading up on issues and finding a way to make it as clear and appealing as is humanly possible." Leo told him. "Clear your schedule, Sam. This needs to be perfect."

\-----------------

"Toby, a moment." The President said, as the meeting broke up.

"Yes, sir."

The President waited until the room cleared, including Leo who hovered until he realised that he wasn't welcome.

"Toby, did Leo have a little talk with you after the leadership breakfast?"

"Yes, sir." Toby replied reluctantly.

"And has he talked to anyone else?"

"I... don't think so, sir."

"Okay." Bartlet relaxed and sat down. "You need to get Sam's head out of his butt."

"I know."

"It would help if you got your head out of your butt." Bartlet continued. "I need both of you working on this. Swallow your pride and apologize to him."

"I'm not sure I can do that, sir."

"Toby, now is not a time for pigheadedness." Bartlet said firmly. "Suck it up and do it. You've done it before, more times than anyone except maybe Leo."

"It isn't that." Toby looked at his shoes.

"Then what is the problem?"

"I can't promise I won't do it again." Toby finally replied. "To me, that's part of an apology."

"And you can't explain why." Bartlet said softly. Toby looked up sharply.

"I'm not stupid, Toby. And I know how Leo's mind works." Bartlet replied. "I know what you're doing. And you need Sam to do it."

"Sir, are you telling me..."

"No." Bartlet cut him off. "No, I'm not. All I'm saying is you and Leo can't do what you're doing alone. I don't know if what he's doing is going to happen. But I do know it won't happen without Sam."

"What about Josh and CJ?"

"They aren't writing the State of the Union." Bartlett said quietly. "You and Sam are. I need your vision and I need Sam's words. Do what you have to do to get them."

\-----------------

"How long are you going to be mad at Toby?" Josh asked, as they walked through the West Wing.

"How long is eternity?" Sam snapped, taking a file from Cathy and walking into his office.

"Okay, I can see why you're pissed." Josh followed him in. "But this is Toby, Sam. You know what he's like."

"Yes, I do." Sam stuffed the file into the filing cabinet and slammed the drawer shut with unnecessary force. "I can't work with someone who doesn't trust me."

Josh opened the filing cabinet and retrieved the file and handed it back to Sam.

"Toby does trust you."

"Like hell he does." Sam threw the file onto his desk and ran his hand through his hair. "You don't get it, Josh, do you?"

"No. How about you explain it to me?" Josh perched on the edge of Sam's desk and looked at him expectantly.

"Look, I do a good job." Sam said tightly. "I took the speech with the okay from the President himself. Who the hell does Toby Ziegler think he is, to overrule the President of the United States?"

"Sam..."

"So it wasn't the best idea politically." Sam continued. "I am sick and tired of not being able to do what we were elected to do because we're afraid that someone's going to get upset. I thought we had more courage than that."

"Um..." Josh was about to respond, but then closed his mouth.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"The environmental lobby got upset because we had the courage to point out that extremism is not acceptable." Josh said quietly. "What's the real point?"

"The real point is..." Sam took a deep breath and started again. "Toby is a brilliant writer."

"Yes."

"Josh, I've read stuff he wrote when he was my age. I'm good, but he's better." Sam admitted. "I sometimes feel like a little kid, compared to him."

"Toby was born middle aged, Sam." Josh tried to smile. "We're all little kids, compared to him."

"I've worked hard to learn everything I can. I've earned my place here." Sam said slowly. "If I can't be trusted to know about something that affects my work, I should not be here."

"You are trusted, Sam."

"Not by Toby." Sam shook his head. "He did not trust me to tell me about the drop-in. He didn't say a word about it. He just went ahead and did it, as if cleaning up after a badly paper trained puppy."

"At least he didn't spank you on the nose with a newspaper." Josh replied, with another attempt at a smile.

"He did rub my nose in it." Sam retorted. "And I don't even think the drop in was strictly necessary. We do the speech, we set something up with the labour unions and everything is fine."

"Not fine, but yeah, I guess." Josh ran his hand through his hair. "Look, Sam, Toby was wrong not to tell you. That's the only thing he was wrong about and you know it. Maybe he just didn't want the confrontation."

"Toby? Not want confrontation? Are we talking about the same guy?"

"Look, I don't know what's going on in his head." Josh straightened. "Frankly, I don't think I want to. If you want to know why he didn't tell you, you're going to have to ask him."

"I don't want to be lied to again."

"You know, that attitude is going to be hard to get around for the State of the Union."

"I won't be here for it."

"What?"

"I'm resigning." Sam said firmly. "I can't work with Toby anymore. I can't be in the dark about things that affect my work and if I can't do my job, I'm not staying."

"Shit." Josh slumped his shoulders. "Did you hand in your resignation to Leo?"

"He wouldn't accept it. He told me to give it to Toby."

"And...?"

"Toby told me I had to give two weeks. In two weeks, he said he'd accept it, if I still felt the same way."

\-----------------

Sam dragged himself home at a reasonable hour. He had only seen Toby in passing and hadn't spoken to him all day. He had thought, at first, that Toby was avoiding him, but Ginger had told him that Toby was in meetings all day with labour and business leaders. He felt a slight twinge; the meetings were, according to Ginger, acrimonious. They had not been happy about the speech. Then again, his day had been busy, too.

The irony was too sharp for humour. Toby had spent all day defending Sam's actions, which he hadn't agreed with, and Sam had spent all morning defending the drop-in to the environmental lobby. Sam wondered, as he put some food into the microwave to heat, whether the environmental lobby was aware that he agreed with them wholeheartedly.

The microwave had just pinged when the doorbell went off. Sam sighed. This happened all the time, although it was usually his cell that made three quarters of the meals he made at home go cold.

\-----------------

Toby was standing at the door when he answered the bell.

"What do you want?" Sam said ungraciously, not inviting his boss in.

"The President ordered me to talk to you." Toby said bluntly.

"You could have done that at work."

"I need to talk to you without interruptions. May I come in?"

"Sure." Sam walked away from the door, going into the living room and not bothering to see if Toby followed.

"I spoke to the President today." Toby began, without preamble and without taking off his coat.

"You talk to him all the time." Sam inserted, a hard edge of bitterness in his voice.

"We need to get past this so we can do the State of the Union." Toby continued as if Sam hadn't spoken. "He needs your words."

"You write as well or better than I do."

"Not in his voice."

"You do it. You're going to anyway."

"I will write the majority of it, yes." Toby allowed. "I need you to make my words into President Bartlet's words. I can't do this by myself."

"So you admit I have some uses."

Sam, get your head out of your ass." Toby ordered. "You're the President's speech writer. I can't write the way you do."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

"Will truth?"

Sam paused at the soft question.

"What?"

"Sam, the drop-in was necessary."

"Yeah. So Josh has been saying all day. The politics..."

"That's not what I meant." Toby sighed and sat down. "Sam, it isn't the politics that I'm worried about. We've fixed worse problems in more elegant ways. The problem is time."

"Time?"

"We didn't have time to fix this any other way." Toby ran his hand across his head. "We need labour and business support and we need it now."

"We have another year to get them on board." Sam pointed out. "They won't remember this next year."

"We don't have another year, Sam." Toby said quietly.

"We do not need their votes yet." Sam said stubbornly.

"No, we don't. We need their money."

"Money? The drop in was a damned fundraising exercise?"

"Yes. We are going to need a massive influx of cash soon to start the re-election campaign."

"That's a year away."

"No, it's not. It's already started, Sam." Toby said softly. "It started with Ann Stark and her ambush."

"What?"

"In all but name, her guy announced his candidacy for President." Toby replied. "We're in an election, Sam. And right now, we need to get the financial support in place as soon as possible."

"Back up here, Toby." Sam waved a hand, then ran it through his hair. "Josh didn't say anything about that."

"Josh doesn't know."

"Wait a minute. You're holding out on Josh?"

"Leo approached me after the leadership breakfast. Only me."

"Why?"

"Because I've fought more ugly campaigns than either you or Josh have ever seen. And this one is going to be very ugly."

"Leo is holding out on Josh?"

"No. Leo's holding out on the President."

"Bartlet doesn't know he's running?"

"Not officially, no." Toby said, very seriously. "Sam, you remember what it was like when Bartlet was running for the nomination. It took him a long time to decide he really wanted it. Leo doesn't want to force the decision on the President yet, but he needs to have the pieces in place when the President does decide."

"But Josh isn't part of that."

"Josh's skills are in persuading support on the hill. He can get the political support when we need it. We don't need that yet. Right now, we can't look like we're campaigning, but we need money and we need it soon."

"Why did Leo tap you?"

"Experience." Toby shrugged. "Leo and I have the most experience in this sort of backroom campaigning. Leo doesn't want this discussed in case it puts the President in an awkward position."

"I have less experience than Josh." Sam said thoughtfully. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I need you to understand what the drop-in was about." Toby said quietly. "It wasn't about ambushing you. It wasn't about personal revenge. It wasn't a lack of trust."

"So it wasn't about Ann, then."

"Yes, it was." Toby admitted, with a wry smile. "It had everything to do with Ann and her ambush. And about the meeting I had in Kansas City."

"Kansas City? What were you doing in Kansas City that affected this?"

"Other than not be there to tell you and the President that the speech was a bad idea?" Toby lifted a brow. "Picking up three million dollars of contributions for the DNC."

"From....?" Sam looked slightly ill.

"The very people who the President declined to meet with because of the South American trip." Toby finished.

"Did we lose that?" Sam asked quietly.

"No." Toby shook his head. "It's fine, Sam. We moved fast enough to keep it. All things considered, Sam, I couldn't give you a heads up on the drop-in."

"Why not? You're telling me now. Why not yesterday?"

"I was afraid you'd convince me."

"What?"

"Normally, the drop-in wouldn't have been necessary. We could have let it go and do something else to make labour and business happy. A decent photo op and a small tax break would have done it." Toby admitted. "But not when we're facing campaign level financing. I didn't have any other argument to use and I didn't have Leo's permission to bring you in."

"Do you have it now?"

"No, but a direct Presidential order trumps Leo's any day."

"I thought you said the President isn't in on this."

"The President knows Leo as well as Leo knows him. He knows what Leo's doing. He told me that when he told me to do what I had to do to get you to write the State of the Union."

"He said that?"

"Yes."

"So none of this is a trust issue." Sam said slowly.

"It's all a trust issue." Toby shook his head. "Josh is going to find out that Leo's holding out on him. CJ is going to be madder than a wet hen to find out she's out of the loop. And Leo's not going to be pleased to know that Bartlet can see right through him. We have to trust each other to do what has to be done, even when we can't talk about it."

"So much for friends being honest with each other." Sam said, without rancour.

"You're expecting honesty in politics?" Toby snorted. Sam looked at him, startled at the bitterness in his tone.

"Toby..." Sam said, after a moment. "CJ said something to me today..."

"What?" Now the soft voice held nothing but weariness.

"She said you were trying to apologise to me." Sam stated. Toby didn't answer. "You were, weren't you?"

"Yeah." Toby answered finally. "And I couldn't."

"Yeah, I know it's hard for you to..." Sam began, softly.

"I won't apologise for something when I can't promise I won't do it again." Toby cut in. "I couldn't promise that. So do I look for a new deputy? I need to know soon, Sam."

"I'll... think about it. You did give me two weeks." Sam replied. His anger was pretty much gone, his natural tendency to forgive urging him to let it go. Yet, he hesitated, wanting to think about what he had learned.

"Want to think about it over dinner?" Toby asked suddenly. "I haven't eaten yet and I doubt you have, either."

"Sure."

\-----------------

"Oh, damn." Sam swore softly as he was served his pasta.

"What?" Toby looked up from his own plate.

"I forgot to congratulate CJ on her award."

"Don't worry about it. I sent flowers and congratulations from all of us. She'll get them on Saturday."

"Why Saturday?"

"It's the only day she'll be home to recieve them." Toby shrugged.

"You sent flowers?" Sam's mind was boggling at this unprecidented thoughtfulness on Toby's part.

"I've learned my lesson where CJ is concerned." Toby said cryptically.

It was on the tip of Sam's tongue to ask for details, but he saw the look in Toby's eyes. He recalled CJ's reference to an apology; and Leo's assertion that Toby could reprimand himself better than anyone else.

He ate silently for a while, thinking. He opened his mouth once or twice to tell Toby to forget about the resignation, to pretend that their conflict never happened. Yet, the words remained stillborn on his tongue.

He was no longer angry, nor did he believe that Toby's trust was not his. He would not resign in a fit of piqued pride.

He might resign in a sudden understanding of what politics did to men. He looked across the table at Toby. Toby was looking particularly tired tonight. Tired and sad and disillusioned. Sam wondered if he, too, would look like that; whether the energy and fire he brought to politics would be crushed out as it seemed to have been for Toby. Did he really want to stay in a job that did that to a person?

"Sam?" Toby's voice brought him out of his thoughts. Toby was no longer looking pensive, merely weary after a long day.

"Friends are honest with each other, aren't they?" Sam asled quietly.

"In so far as they can, yes."

"Do you ever regret going into politics?"

"No." The denial was swift and sincere.

"Why not?"

"Because it's what I am." Toby did not misunderstand the question. "I regret many things, Sam, but getting into politics isn't among of them."

"It's taken a lot from you."

"Yes. And it's given me the opportunity to make a difference." Toby allowed. "Besides, I can't think of any other job that allows me to yell at very powerful people with impunity."

Sam grinned at that.

"So when do we let the world in on the fact that Josiah Bartlet will be President in 2002?" He asked offhandedly.

"The State of the Union will be the wake up call." Toby replied. "You in?"

"Considering that somebody has to translate the grumpy brilliance of Toby Ziegler into the charming brilliance of Josiah Bartlet, I guess I am."

END  



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